


Under The Blue

by JuniperMoon



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Craquaria - Freeform, F/F, Fluff, Lesbian AU, i wrote this in an hour and didn’t edit so i apologize, mermaid au, this was supposed to be a oneshot but i got carried away
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-02 17:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14549784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuniperMoon/pseuds/JuniperMoon
Summary: After a long year away from the sea, Brianna finally returns to the ocean to spend a whole summer with her mermaid girlfriend.  Sure, it’s unconventional, but it’s love.Inspired by the mermaid runway from episode 7.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic for drag race but I’m excited to write more! I’ll be posting this and others (hopefully) on artificialqueens under the name “Juniper.”

Brianna looked back at every miserable hour spent in classes that year and decided that it was all worth it just to have three months to spend with the love of her life, however unconventional that may be.

It was finally summer and her parents had given her the beach house keys, which meant that she wouldn’t have to stay under constant supervision. Everything was falling into place.

The moment she pulled in the gravelly driveway, she frantically rummaged for her bathing suit in her bag and dashed inside to change. Her heart pounded and her brain was taken over by dizzy euphoria, and she felt like her girlfriend was feeling it too. The straps of her pink bikini were barely tied before she shoved the back door open and ran down the warm sand to the beach. For such a beautiful location, the owners of the neighboring houses rarely ever bothered to touch the shore.

It still didn’t feel real to Brianna that today was the day, that the nine months of waiting actually meant something. That she could hear her voice instead of conjuring up memories while reading the letters, though it’s not like she didn’t cherish every single heartfelt message she received.

Looking at her on the outside, you wouldn’t even be able to tell that she was feeling about five hundred different emotions, both happy and panicking. She calmly laid her towel on the sand as her mind raced.

_What if she forgot it was today? What if she’s not here? What if she doesn’t remember me? What… What if she was never real to begin with?_

Brianna’s head taunted her with every possible negative outcome, but she did her best to shake them off. There was only one outcome she cared about, and that would make any second of doubt, hurt, and sorrow worth it. The aching in her chest when she wanted her love to be in her arms all those miles apart was all a part of the process, and now she’d finally benefit. She sat down on her towel and exhaled.

One minute passed, and then another. Then it was five. Had she brought her phone, she would be checking it every ten seconds because the minutes didn’t just feel like hours, they felt like days.

_Come on, come on…_

She finally pried her eyes off of the slippery rock that jutted out of the water with a flat surface, because she knew any more time spent not seeing her girlfriend could kill her.

Suddenly, a quiet splash that thundered in Brianna’s ears broke the gentle silence.

“Brie!”

And there she was, dazzling and ecstatic. Her blonde hair hung in dripping strands, framing the smile that felt like a dopamine injection to Brianna’s heart whenever she saw it.

“Aquaria!” Brianna squealed, running into the water as fast as the waves would allow. Aquaria slid off of the rock until she was firmly in Brianna’s arms, locked in a hug that was a promise of love and protection, and an apology for every night spent apart, eyes locked on the stars wondering when their two hearts would intertwine once more. This was their time, and they were going to cherish it.

Aquaria let go of the hug just a little too soon for Brianna’s taste. Brianna held the mermaid’s hands, gazing into her brilliant cyan eyes at a loss for words. Her black glossy tail brushed against her legs, the tattered ends a reminder of how much Aquaria endured to be able to love again.

“I missed you,” Brianna said, though it was an understatement and they both knew it. Aquaria nodded, and Brianna could have sworn she saw tears welling up in her girlfriend’s eyes.

Aquaria kissed her hands in lieu of a response. “So…” she said, repositioning herself so that Brianna could fully hold her, tail and all-- bridal style.

“Where do we even start?”

Aquaria smirked. “I have a few ideas.”

When she leaned in to connect their lips, all the pent up frustration and want was released into one passionate kiss, their hands tangling in each other’s hair, feeling how the other was smiling into it just as wide as she was. Aquaria felt Brianna’s hands move up and down her back, feeling the start of her scales with great care. Brianna really knew how to make a girl melt with her hands. Aquaria only pulled away long enough to whisper an “I love you” into Brianna’s lips, and for her to return the sentiment with equal honesty.

Out of breath, they pulled away, exhilarated. Brianna made a puzzled expression when Aquaria started giggling.

“Oh come on, what is it?” she said, mocking sternness. She could never be mad at her.

The mermaid stifled a laugh. “Sorry for… ruining your lipstick.”

Brianna then joined in on the laughter. “I finally get to kiss you again for the first time in months and you _apologize_ to me? God, I don’t know what to do with you.”

“Well, now we have time. So let’s start with something nice.”

“Miss Aquaria, may I have this dance?” Brianna asked, extending her hand and bowing her head. Aquaria, instead of replying, splashed her in the face. “You’re terrible. I’ll take that as a yes.”

Brianna wrapped her arms around Aquaria’s waist, feeling her arms around her neck. They didn’t have music, but silence was comfortable with them. With a love that strong, being with each other was good enough.

Aquaria’s head fell onto Brianna’s shoulder as they swayed in the water to the melody of the wind, with the waves keeping time. Sure, she was already literally floating, but her mind could finally float away. The warmth of Brianna’s body melted all of the icy stress off of her cold bones.

“I can’t even express how happy I am to be here,” Brianna said, breaking the silence. Aquaria responded with an “mm,” which her girlfriend understood as an agreement.

“I love it when you hold me like this.”

Brianna didn’t think her heart could melt any more than it already had, but apparently she was mistaken.

“I… I… love holding you. Knowing that you’re real and here. I love you, Aquaria.”

Aquaria craned her neck, still rested on Brianna’s shoulder. “I love you, Brianna.”

Brianna looked at the where the water met the sky and thought of all the sunsets she’d finally be able to watch with the person she cared about most of all. All the moments they’d share, and the memories they’d make.

(And the totally awesome makeout sessions they’d have. She couldn’t forget those.)

This summer was going to be unforgettable.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brianna brings Aquaria some much needed junk food and they catch up. As the sun goes down, it reminds them of their first sunset they ever watched together-- and brings back the feelings of that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was so happy to see the positive feedback on chapter one that I decided to continue this! Hope you guys enjoy this chapter, I hope I can actually update consistently! I promise there'll be more content after AP exams are done :)

“Oh my god, how long does it take for you to blow up a tube?” Aquaria hollered to the frantic pink blob up the hill. Apparently Brie wasn’t content with keeping herself afloat on her own, so she insisted on grabbing something to sit in.

Through huffs and puffs, Brianna shouted back, “Just a sec!” and went back to work trying to put all of her oxygen into the tube.  
Aquaria rolled her eyes but couldn’t wipe the smile off of her face. Sure, her girlfriend was a doofus sometimes, but she was _her_ doofus. Her cheesy thoughts were interrupted by the wave created after Brianna flopped into the inner tube. The grin on the human’s face was manic, especially coupled with the bags of junk food she was clutching on to for dear life so as not to get them wet.

“So, how long has it been since you’ve had some high-quality, high-processed human food?”

“I mean, other than last summer? The closest I’ve gotten was the cookies you sent that one time. That was really nice.” Brianna looked pleased with herself upon hearing Aquaria’s approval.

“But I’m sure that Jinkx snuck a few on her way over,” Aquaria added. The pride on Brie’s face transformed into exasperation faster than she could grab all of the cheez-its in the pantry.

“Are you kidding me? I trust her with the most important thing to me and she DEFILES the artistry that is my baking? Now that’s disrespect.” Her jaw hung open and her eyes bugged out of her head: she looked like she had witnessed a murder, so of course Aquaria had to giggle.

“Don’t worry too much babe, she still brought me your letters every week. And I made sure she got every word right that I wanted to say.”

“What about the ones that… you know… “

Aquaria gave Brie a playful shove, causing her to drift slightly away. “Relax, if a letter was ‘too saucy’ in her words she gave it straight to me. I know you trust her, so I do too.” She pulled her girlfriend’s tube closer to her so she could push herself out of the water to kiss Brie on the forehead. The only reply she gave was an “mmph,” since her mouth was stuffed full of cheez-its.

“So, do you want to swallow your food, or…”

“I’m just glad that everything was alright with communication. I know how hard it was for you to build your trust of us back after all that you went through,” Brianna finally spat out, mouth free of detritus. Aquaria tried to hide the way her face fell and her stomach twisted, just for a moment, at the mention of the past. It was done, and she was safe and in love. What more did she need?

“Oreos.” She opened her mouth, waiting for Brie to slot them into her mouth.

“I can’t believe you sometimes.” Brie complied nonetheless, taking two of the cookies out of the package and placing them on Aquaria’s tongue.

“Ank ooh.”

“You’re welcome.” Brianna turned around to put the leftover garbage into the cupholder of the tube. She wasn’t about to pollute the home of her very favorite mermaid.

Out of the corner of her eye, Aquaria noticed the fondest expression creeping its way onto Brianna’s face. A slight smile, with eyes hiding something beneath the glossy brown surface. Mischief, love… or something in between? She couldn’t tell.

Aquaria locked eyes with her girlfriend, watching the way the breeze made the few stray strands of blonde hair dance around her sunlit face, and she could have sworn she heard her breath hitch just a little bit as she felt the air thicken with the girl’s intoxicating beauty. She gulped, swallowing the remainder of the oreos.

Brianna reached her hand out to caress Aquaria’s smooth skin. The mermaid’s eyes darted down to the point of contact, then back up to meet with Brianna’s. She rubbed soft circles with her thumb, the warmth of the creeping-down sun showing itself in her gentle smile.

“I wanna watch the sunset with you,” Brianna finally murmured. Aquaria nodded vigorously. “Remember our first one together?” she continued.

“Of course.” Aquaria smiled at the memory. It was at the end of the first week they started getting to know each other, with Aquaria always swimming back home at the first signs of dusk. As she was turning around to dive back in the water, Brianna had called out to her and pleaded for her to stay a while: after all, the sky was clear and the breeze was warm. She had tentatively dragged herself out of the water onto the beach towel the girl had laid out for her, thinking of how wrong it was to be this close to a human, but her heart beating drums to a future love song. Beneath the pink and orange swirls, Brianna had not-so-subtly been scooting closer to Aquaria the entire time, just so she could rest her head on her shoulder.

“That was when I realized how short you are,” Aquaria chuckled. Being next to her on the beach finally gave her perspective, as opposed to the two of them floating in the water. Brianna had such an active personality packed into such a small body, and that night was when Aquaria realized how much she admired her. When the setting sun brought out the shine in her black scales, when the waves teased the torn edges of her fins, when Brianna finally reached out to clasp their hands together (and she was terrified to do it, not that she’d ever let that show), when she had looked up at her with wide eyes and red cheeks and quick breaths, when she made that split second decision--

“I kissed you,” Brianna said, “for the first time that night. It was honestly so unlike me, but I thought I was freaking you out by pressuring you to hang out with me, so I guess it was the best decision I’ve made that could’ve gone either way really. I mean, how was I supposed to know that you--”  
Aquaria shut up her girlfriend with a gentle kiss. “Babe, it’s okay. I’m so glad you asked me to stay.”

“Oh, me too! I really thought I was reading things wrong. I’m happy you ended up staying too, not just for the night. Like, with me. So, um. Thanks.” Aquaria was entertained by how flustered her girlfriend got when it came to the topic of her. Not much tripped the unstoppable Brianna Heller up, so knowing that she got to her was a little boost of confidence. And love. Lots of love.

Aquaria grabbed Brie’s hands, swinging them from side to side, as if she was conducting a symphony of seaweed and foam. “So, am I still gonna sit on a towel for the second-first-sunset?”

Her girlfriend gave her a devilish grin. “Oh, no. This year we’ve got an upgrade.” The last syllable had barely left her mouth before she turned to try and sprint out of the water as quickly as she was able to. Aquaria shook her head and snorted; that girl always had a surprise up her sleeve. But hey, whatever excited her, excited Aquaria, too.

Brianna didn’t take nearly as long as she did with her attempt to inflate the tube, so to Aquaria’s surprise she came pattering down the hill much sooner than she imagined she’d return. Instead of a tube, however, she fumbled to carry two pastel pink beach chairs that were just large enough to be awkward for her small frame to handle.

Huffing and puffing, she finally set the chairs down next to each other, right at the edge of where the waves meet the sand, lapping and curiously venturing. “So,” she said, catching her breath, “I bought chairs.”

“I can see that,” Aquaria snickered. After a beat of noticing the confusion on her girlfriend’s face, she added, “I love them. I think they’ll be great.” That was enough to satisfy Brie, who then approached Aquaria to help her out of the water and onto the sand.

“Grab my hands,” she said, knowing full well that the mermaid hadn’t forgotten the procedure of getting onto dry land.

“One, two, three, _kick_ \--” Aquaria flipped her tail in the water, creating a gentle crest and propelling herself forward into Brianna’s arms, who walked backwards to catch herself from the momentum of the kick. Chests pressed together, Brie maneuvered herself so she was able to set Aquaria down in a comfortable sitting position, and soon joined her in the chair to her left.

“Just like old times, huh?”

“Brianna, I don’t consider last year old times. But yeah, it’s just like last year, except better.”

Brianna grinned. “I _knew_ the chairs were a good idea!” She dangled her hand in the space between the chairs, waiting for her girlfriend to bridge the gap by clasping their hands together at last: muscle memory put to use at the reunion. She sealed the wordless contract with a gentle squeeze.

“You were right again, as always.”

“Are you sure you’re alright? Remember if you even start to feel a little bit uncomfortable, I’ll get you right back in the water, I promise, I know how terrible it is when--”

Aquaria shifted her body in the chair to face Brie. “Hey. I’ll be fine. No more problems, okay?”

“Okay.”

As the sun floated lower down, the watercolor spectrum of the sky expanded its boundaries to pinks and lilacs and wisps of a soft yellow that made the beach feel like a true home. The only sound was the swaying rhythm of the waves washing back and forth, making Aquaria’s fin glisten ever so slightly.

“Oh my gosh, I just remembered a great story that I never told you about growing up with my pod,” Aquaria gushed. Brianna looked up at her, eyebrows raised in a do-tell motion.

“So you know how it’s technically against the rules to make any human contact? Well, when all my friends started to grow up, they had their boy crazy phase,” she said, rolling her eyes, “so they’d always break the surface when the human boys had their surfing classes.”

“Oh, so that’s why you never went with them.”

“I’m getting there! Anyway, one of my best friends, Kameron, was really cute.” Brianna jokingly scoffed at that, but knew that she had Aquaria’s whole heart. “She was popular and just really loveable. She’d always go with her other mermaid friends to scout out the cute guys and I never wanted to go but still got jealous, since I thought she liked hanging out with those girls more than me.”

“Lemme guess: spoiler alert, you had a ‘totally platonic’ crush on her?”

“That’s not the point,” Aquaria said, but felt her face turn red nonetheless. “So one day, she asked me to go with them and I said yes because I loved hanging out with her and seeing her happy. They’re all gossiping about Jack or Adam or whatever skinny boy is gonna be trying to surf that day. We swim all the way up to the surface, peek out from behind a rock, and see-- get this-- it’s the _girls’_ class that day.”

“Aquaria, is this the story of your first hookup, because if it is…”  
“Jeez, Brie, you’ve got your mind set on one thing! Not that I mind.” She cleared her throat and nervously glanced off to the side. “Um, where was I… oh yeah, it’s the girls’ class, so they’re all really disappointed. But me, useless as I was, I didn’t see an issue. I was all like, ‘oh great, this will be so much more interesting since they’re more like us!’ I can still see the weirded-out expressions that the other girls gave me when I said that,” she mused, chuckling.

“Kameron was the only one who stayed with me because she wanted me to be comfortable and safe, since everyone else dashed once they realized they wouldn’t be getting the tan pecs they wanted. I guess I was really bad at hiding the dopey grin on my face because Kameron put her hand on my shoulder,” she said, changing her facial expression in preparation to do her southern accent, “and said, ‘Aquaria? I’m pretty sure I know why you stayed. And just so you know, I don’t care if you like other mermaids. But these human girls aren’t for you.’” She gave Brianna a knowing look.

“Well, she was right! Stay away from humans before one steals your heart,” Brianna said like an overzealous pastor.

“You’re actually the worst.” Aquaria picked up her hand and kissed it. “Oh wow, look at the sun now!”

While the girls had gotten lost in Aquaria’s reminiscence, the sun had sunk into the ocean, painting a scarlet stripe down the center of the water, with shimmering orange scattered throughout the rest of the deep blue.

“Just like the first night,” Brianna breathed as she turned to face Aquaria. She carefully got out of her chair and perched herself on Aquaria’s lap with the utmost care, walking her fingers up the glossy scales of her tail to the curve of her bare waist, making her shudder.

“Just like old times,” Aquaria replied, noticing a hint of freckles forming on her girlfriend’s nose from being out in the sun. Before Brianna could lean forward, Aquaria placed a delicate finger on her lips, to shush her silence.

“This time, let me.”

She pulled Brianna’s head up to hers and tentatively pressed their lips together. It didn’t take nearly as long to find familiarity as it had that first night: they definitely got better with lots of practice. She moved one hand to Brie’s face and let the other trace a map of the dips and ridges of her figure, making mental notes of the spots that made her gasp when brushed _just right_. It was a change for Aquaria to feel Brianna melting under _her_ hands: the other girl was so often naturally in control that moments like this rarely popped up. Not that either of them minded a change, since Brianna let go any worry about making more mistakes and let Aquaria refamiliarize herself with her body. Just in case.

Aquaria moved to start ghosting her lips against Brianna’s collarbone, hearing the sighs escape her lips whenever she lightly bit and thinking that it was because of _her_ , that _she_ was the one making her this helpless.

By the time the sky turned dark, their silhouettes were still one warm shape, framed by the starry horizon, eternal for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was some self-indulgent fluff and also me projecting my need for a girlfriend, lol. leave kudos and a comment if you liked it, and maybe what you want to see them do next! :) (side note: i just realized this is the most i've written for a chapter ever :O)

**Author's Note:**

> I only had this planned as a oneshot but hey, leave a comment if you liked it/want to hear more of their story!


End file.
